Shout out to PEPPER....

Just saw your bio while reading your prayer request. I married my high school sweetheart in 1993 after a 10 year separation! Isn't that an interesting coincidence?! How did you find each other? My husband tracked me down on classmates.com, then invited me to 10 yr reunion.

Anyway, will send prayers for husband and son...but just wanted to touch base seeing as how we have such an interesting thing in common!

That is an amazing coincidence. Even while married to my first husband, I knew that my now husband and I would spend our "golden years" together. I didn't know how, I just knew that we would.

Good for your husband in tracking you down! I was the one who had to be the detective. My DH says that he didn't know my married name so he couldn't have found me. That's his excuse anyways.

My ex and I had been separated for a year when I decided to contact my first love just to see what he was doing. I didn't know if he was still married or not but I suspected from his name in the phone book that he wasn't - he had moved from a house to an apartment and there was a new entry (first initial only) that could have been his wife (I knew her name) also in an apartment.

So I decided to phone him one morning just to see if he was married or not. I never knew that I could be as devious as this, but I called him up, told him that I was calling from the Doubleday Book Company with a "cookbook offer" and could I please speak to the lady of the house. How sexist is that? But it was 1985 - maybe it wasn't so sexist back then.

I did not know that he had worked until 4 a.m. and this was 9 a.m. and he shouted into the phone, "THERE IS NO LADY OF THE HOUSE!" and slammed down the phone. That was good news even if he did sound awfully grumpy.

I waited another week and called him up on a Saturday evening. He was cooking himself dinner and invited me over. Within minutes it was like we had never been apart and we were married a year later.

I have had a rough few days and this is the only post I have answered. I started answering one of yours the other day regarding disability insurance but I ran out of energy before I could type anything that made sense.

I am glad that I crawled out of bed and saw this post. I have seen people on TV who ended up married to their first loves. I think that is very special.

Now that "doubleday cookbook" scheme was brilliant! I'm cracking up here! Did you ever confess your shenanigans to your husband? I imagine he thought it was pretty funny, too!

I'd actually moved to 8 (I think?!) states in the 10 years Joe and I had been separated. He says he'd been looking for me for years, but had a knack of always catching me right when I'd moved. He'd reach a roommate of mine or something, and of course, they would never give a stranger my information. He was married all this time (we refer to them as the "dark ages"), but just kept trying to find me because we were great friends in high school too, and he just wanted to touch base.

He says he "almost" found me 4 or 5 times over the 10 years, but it would always be an old listing or address.

When he finally did track me down (and he hadn't really even physically found me...just saw my name on classmates.com and sent me a message thru them...I didn't get the message till 3 months after he sent it!)he'd just gotten his divorce finalized a few months before. Bizarre, huh? Couldn't find me when married to catch up as buddies, but his message reached me almost immediately after he divorced. We spoke for the 1st time on Halloween, I flew to Ohio to accompany him to our 10th reunion at Thanksgiving(I lived in florida at the time) and within 6 hours of our reunion, we knew we'd end up married. We were formally engaged over Christmas, and were married the following November 1st.

So, really we both reunited with our high school sweethearts after an unsuccessful 1st attempt at "I do", and knew immediately that we'd spend rest of our lives together, and then got married a year later!

Pretty amazing!!! I guess first love really is the strongest, for both of us!

I did manage to get our wedding photographer to take a photo of us on our wedding day in front of a giant fountain remarkably similar to the one we'd taken our picture at the night of our senior prom...that's pretty neat to see the differences!

Anyhow, this is a marathon post! Sorry! I know you're having a rough day (((hugs)))), so definitely don't worry abt replying. I've been pretty darn active for me today (sat at computer for a few hours. Whoohoo!) and am pretty bushed myself.

But it was wonderful to meet you and hear about your family, and now your whole family will be in my prayers!

Rachel,
Your now hubby was far too persistant to just be wanting to contact you as a bud, but I'm sure you know that. It is a special (divine??) coincidence after all those years of trying, that he finally contacts you right after divorce.

And while I know Joseph isn't the type to mess around (even on the evil ex!), we do know that we were lucky that things worked out the way they did, or we might have had a sticky situation noone was comfortable with! lol